


Glass Lies and Fairy Doll Eyes

by Saraptor



Category: Naruto
Genre: Additional Warnings in Notes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't copy to another site, F/F, F/M, Folklore Elements, Liberal use of headcanon, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Or in other words, Supernatural Elements, Violence, Witches, Yôkai, naruto but with actual wizard ninjas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-03 07:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saraptor/pseuds/Saraptor
Summary: Madara had learned that the more magic he knew, the less it made sense. Hashirama would like to say he'd given up trying to figure out his strange friend. Naori just wanted to keep them all alive.There was a world lurking in the corner of their eyes, just out of sight—but always there. Always.





	1. The Pied Piper

**Author's Note:**

> This is a weird one! It's kind of a melting pot of various folklore and mythologies I've been reading up on. I've been looking forward to getting around to writing it for a while, so here goes!

There were mornings when the gray mists hung heavy over the Uchiha Clan encampment. It brought the forest shadows to life, a nip in the air that sparked bonfires. Bonfires always meant stories, families gathered around the dancing flames to watch the clan storytellers weave their best tales.

On one such morning, Uchiha Naori woke with a buzz of energy in her step. The rare cup of coffee her parents allowed her wasn't the cause of it, nor was the bonfire—which people were already preparing for with gleaming eyes.

Hers was a far simpler joy. Today, Naori turned six years old and her parents had promised her a brand new set of kunai. There was a package of ink and calligraphy quills stashed away, too. Her parents had hidden it quite well, for her birthday surprise.

Throwing on a mantle, trousers, and sandals, she flung herself out of the tent. It was only after she'd greeted Hikaku, who took a look at her and burst into laughter, that she paused to inspect her hair.

"When was the last time you brushed it?" he said. "Last year?" And then, before she had the chance to say something particularly sharp, he added, "Happy Birthday."

It was a poor effort to save his own hide, but she bore it with a tempered sideways glare. She'd seen many of the older Uchiha do it to their friends, too. Unlike the others who'd labored under the glare, Hikaku only grinned back at her. She blamed it on her round face and hoped, in future years, she would mature enough to pull it off.

"Let me," said Hikaku, when nothing immediately happened, procuring a hair tie from seemingly nowhere.

She turned to give him access to the shoulder-length waves, which he combed out with gentle fingers and braided. Because he was her friend, and because she knew Hikaku was fond of braids, she didn't wrinkle her nose. Naori didn't like her hair in a braid. The weight against her neck was off-putting.

The rest of the day could have gone on as typical for Naori, plus birthday allowances.

She would have wandered into the forest for some play training with Hikaku, raided the food supply for a couple extra rolls. That afternoon, she might have sat down to practice her calligraphy, before she was dragged out to the bonfire by her eager parents.

Perhaps, the clan threw her a surprise song and dance. Then again, maybe none of that happened. Maybe she listed around the clan all day, bored out of her mind. One would be free to imagine as they wished, because it didn't matter in the end.

What happened next was most certainly important, though. It also wasn't part of Naori's normal day.

A dry voice spoke behind her. "Hello, Hikaku-kun, Naori-chan—and happy birthday!"

The two children whirled around. They hadn't heard anyone approaching.

Quick words on Uchiha Masami would be something like: _she was strange_.

That didn't really begin to cover it, though, so one must unfortunately look deeper. Deeper than the impossible tangle of dark hair, or the pallid quality of her face, or the razor-edged grin that made everyone suspect she was permanently laughing at an inside joke that no one was actually on the inside of. Deeper, even, than the graceful way she didn't so much walk, as she floated over the ground.

How she married Tajima was something of clan legend. At some point, a young Masami had seen Tajima, gruff and grouchy and brooding, and said, "That's it. He's the one." The rest was history. It was a blurry, fuzzy sort of history that seemed to always be there, but no one quite thought about it.

Masami was Tajima's wife. Fact. No one remembered Masami's parents. Also a fact.

She was undeniably an Uchiha, though, proven by the Sharingan eyes she had no compunction flashing at people who irritated her.

The moral of the story was that there were no quick words for Uchiha Masami. She was, after all, the mother of Uchiha Madara. The clan didn't know much about little Madara, though, so no one was caught up over that detail yet.

So, when Masami had crossed the encampment, weaving between tents, and stopped directly behind Naori and Hikaku, a great many of the adults had ceased working to watch. That was how Naori found herself under the scrutiny of the Clan Head's wife, along with a sizable crowd. She very much wished she wasn't under that attention.

"Hello, Masami-sama," she said politely, nothing if not a girl of propriety.

There was a bundle in Masami's arms. It drew Naori's attention for the same reason any bundle, or package, drew a child's attention on their birthday. The bundle moved, and Naori realized it wasn't a gift. A pudgy hand waved in the air, followed by a soft coo.

Masami was smiling, almost unconsciously.

"Would you like to see?" she said to Naori, gray eyes fixed on the girl. "He's only three months old. So small, hmm?"

She knelt, holding out the bundle slightly, to allow the morning light to fall over the baby's face. Naori and Hikaku crowded around him. He was paler than any baby Naori had ever seen. She was almost afraid he was sick, but Masami surely wouldn't be smiling like that, if her child was ill.

"I need to speak with our esteemed Clan Head," said Masami, in the tone of voice Naori noticed adults often got when they were irritated with something ridiculous. She looked imploringly at the two children. Naori's heart sunk. Adults only did that when they were going to ask for something, and it was her _birthday_. "Can you look after Madara-chan for me? It will only be for a while."

Naori looked at the quiet, pale baby.

"You'd be like his big sister," said Masami. "I know it's not the birthday gift you'd ask for, but—"

"It's fine," said Naori quickly. Babysitting wasn't something she fancied for her birthday, but she always wanted a little sibling. She tried not to be obvious, but somehow she doubted much alluded Masami.

The baby was unexpectedly heavy in her arms. He was also warm and smelled of his mother, along with the accompanying baby scent that all babies seemed to have. Naori didn't know if it was a kind of powder, or if babies actually smelled like that.

"Keep a close eye on him," said Masami, smiling down at them. There were laugh lines around her eyes. "I'll come and pick him up later."

"Bye, Masami-sama," said Naori, sparing her a respectful nod, before returning her attention to the baby. Little Madara was babbling quietly.

Once Masami was well and gone, out of earshot, Hikaku leaned in to look closer at Madara. He was frowning.

"Guess this means we can't go into the forest, huh?" he said, giving one of Madara's chubby cheeks a gentle poke. "Oh, look, I think he sees my finger."

They spent the majority of the day safely inside the encampment, though Naori and Hikaku couldn't resist straying into the forest a little. Naori kept Madara held snuggly to her chest, pointing out objects to him, while a good majority of the adult Uchiha had abandoned their duties to follow the children around with varying expressions of stressed concern. Each was ready to leap at the sign of Madara being dropped by accident.

Naori showed Madara her calligraphy set, when she unwrapped it. She walked him around the building bonfire. She told him about the Uchiha and her studies and her family, and how she'd always wanted a little brother. In truth, she hadn't cared if she had a brother or a sister, but she wanted Madara to think she'd specifically wanted him—despite the fact he assuredly would not remember anything she told him.

Giving him up felt something like abandoning family. Naori had teared up when Madara burst into sobs, and Masami carefully did not say it was because the boy was starving.

"D'you think Masami-sama will let me babysit again?"

Hikaku shrugged.

"You do continuous strokes. It's sort of like a kata, but with brushes."

Madara was sitting up. He'd grown a thick mop of hair in the past six months that stuck up in all directions, no matter how Naori tried to tame it. To her concern, he'd also taken to trying to crawl up any solid object and stand. It looked almost comical on his bent, frog-like legs.

Lack of experience in all things babies left Naori at something of a loss for a good while. She'd wanted to babysit Madara more, but didn't exactly know ihowi to interact with a baby. Or what to do with him. There were little rattle toys, but they always felt patronizing. Madara was a baby, true—but Naori wasn't about to go around waving a baby rattle for him. Instead, she took to reading books aloud and, more recently, showing him the finer points of calligraphy.

She also took him on strolls by the weapons stands. While he wasn't even a year old, not nearly old enough to learn to fight, let alone wield a real weapon, it never hurt to start young.

He was so frail in her arms, as she pointed out the kunai and the swords. Despite evidence to the contrary—she'd seen him survive a fall from a table once, though it nearly gave her nightmares—he felt breakable. His limbs were like moth wings, delicate and so easily destroyed. The longer she looked after him, the greater her fears grew that something terrible would befall him.

The world was so dangerous to children. Naori was only six years old and she already knew that. Carrying Madara around the camp, noticing for the first time all the hazards to his young life, she realized what a miracle it was she'd survived so long. And the adults, she thought, were the greatest miracle. They had actually struggled to adulthood.

Naori combed her fingers through Madara's wisps of raven hair. She wanted him to grow up to be an adult. She wanted him to live.

Months wore on and Naori was seven. Then, she was eight.

She no longer carried Madara. Instead, he toddled by her on surprisingly steady feet, holding onto her hand, watching every move with keen gray eyes. She couldn't help a smile at the wrinkle in his forehead whenever he was considering something, deeply serious. Usually, it was whether he wanted fish or a simple porridge. Sometimes, it was over his sets of identical outfits, all miniature Uchiha mantles with little sandals.

As the winter thawed into the beginnings of spring, Izuna came kicking and screaming into the world. He eventually gained the same sort of quiet paleness Madara had possessed as a newborn, but he never stopped kicking. And squirming. And writhing in his blankets. Really, it was no wonder he was called Izuna—_weasel_, indeed.

Naori kept a wary eye on the little child. It wasn't that she didn't like Izuna, because that was impossible. Izuna was the poster child for adorable babies. Rosy cheeks, shining eyes, a joyous babble—he would curl his fingers and beg, "Again! Again!" when Hikaku tossed him in the air, to the horror of the surrounding adults—he was a painting-perfect baby.

Only two years old, and Madara had latched himself to his little brother. He showed no signs of unlatching. He clung to Izuna with the stubborn clinginess of koala bear, pouting when Izuna was taken away. Not even Masami was spared his forehead wrinkle.

"He's not replacing you," said Hikaku one evening, cutting right down to the root of the issue.

Naori didn't like the ease with which he did things like that. Sometimes, she suspected he could read minds.

"I never said he was," she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the scene before her. Madara was sitting on a blanket next to Izuna, who was thrashing out at invisible opponents. Wooden animals, painstakingly whittled by Hikaku, were scattered on the blanket. Madara had introduced each of them to his brother. "He loves his little brother dearly."

"He's two and he loves you, too," said Hikaku sagely.

"I'm not worried about it."

"Of course you're not."

Naori would deny until her dying breath the great swell of joy in her chest when Madara had asked her, in halting and imploring words, to watch her calligraphy lesson.

(Even if he only ended up using her ink to paint his animals. She'd gotten in trouble and Madara was taken home by Masami, but it had left ink stains on the tent floors and in the hems of her yukata. She pocketed one of the animals to give back to him later.

Somehow, the animal stayed in her pocket. It would find itself on her wall at some point in the future, forever remembered.)

Nothing could stop the ever marching beat of time. Madara was three, and then he was four, and then he was six. He was seven.

There was a marked difference between ages three and seven, Naori noted. The terrible twos were gone and done, though she hadn't thought them so terrible. Three was a time of innocent curiosity, fumbling hands grasping a kunai for the first time. Target practice was filled with more laughter than determination, focus often devolving into shrieks as they flung dirt clods at each other when they thought the adults weren't looking.

Seven was different. Seven was still young, still frail, but it was forming muscles. Callouses were formed, kunai were wielded for drawing blood, instead of passing time.

Naori was thirteen years old and she'd seen combat. She'd wielded those kunai and drew blood and watched the death rattles of enemies. Grayed eyes of corpses stared at her through her dreams. She tried to imagine Madara, all of seven, standing on those battlefields and found she would rather not.

The years had brought three more brothers. Akirou and Jitarou, twins, were born in the autumn. The final child was Shiori. He was born on a humid summer day at exactly noon, as lunch was being served. It was a running joke that the boy came kicking for his stomach.

"What if something bad happens to him?" said Madara, one week after Shiori's birth. He clutched the swaddled baby in his arms, such a reflection of Naori from years past that she did a doubletake. Wild-haired, pale as ever, with bruises and scratches from training, burrowing a frown into the baby's blankets, he was a sad image.

Naori sounded far calmer and assured than she felt. "He'll be okay. We'll just have to protect him."

There was a tiny nod.

Trouble arrived in the form of two of the older boys. They were Chihaku and Kenta respectively, fourteen years old, and knew better.

Naori had stumbled out of a ninjutsu lesson, hair singed, exhausted. As ever, she sought out Madara first thing, and found him toward the edge of the camp. They were in a spacious part of the forest, tents set up over trampled grasses, while the towering trees shot into the sky. Great, big ferns were _almost_ tall enough to straggle over Madara's head, hiding him from view-_almost_ being the key word.

She considered herself a mild-mannered person, but when she saw Kenta lash out to snatch Madara's hair, the other hand going for a kunai, she'd seen red. She didn't remember moving. One moment she was in the encampment, next moment Kenta was howling in pain and swearing at her with language he probably shouldn't have known.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, after she'd thrown a sideways kick to get Chihaku moving, too. "What were they doing?"

There was a ruckus in the camp. She heard raised voices.

"It was nothing," said Madara, very unconvincingly. He was on the verge of tears, which Naori carefully wiped away with the sleeves of her mantle, before anyone saw. She stayed placid and calm as she could, despite the rising tension in the camp. She could hear Chihaku's parents. "Do you…" Madara trailed off, dark eyes glancing to the camp. He lowered his voice. "Do you think I should cut my hair?"

Naori blinked. Of all the things she'd expected, the hair wasn't one of them. Madara's hair was thick and unruly. She knew some of the older shinobi tutted disapprovingly over its length, straggling down to his shoulder blades. He'd always seemed so proud of it.

"Do you?" she said.

In the camp, Tajima had brought everyone to order. Stories were being told in warbling voices.

Madara tucked his chin down behind his mantle, his voice a mumble. "No."

"Then, I don't think you need to," she said.

It was such a childish thing to worry about. She would laugh about it in the future, tuck it away and cherish it.

The moment was broken by the arrival of Tajima. He had his Clan Head voice galore, head held high, pinning them under a hawkish stare. Paired with the heavy mantle, his sash still tied around his blade from an earlier battle—Naori had stepped over the body of a comrade she'd called friend and nearly cried—he cut an imposing figure.

It took concentrated effort to keep herself placid.

"Naori. Madara."

Sometimes, she wondered. It was human nature, to wonder.

People couldn't help looking at other people and picking them apart every so often, and Naori was experiencing that feeling for the first time. She looked at him, as he watched Madara, and wondered how he was so cold. There wasn't the faintest glimmer of fondness. His eyes never softened for his son, not even when Madara did something noteworthy. His mouth was cut and cruel and Naori had the horrible feeling of standing at the edge of a cliff, clinging to a bridge, while he held a kunai to the fraying ropes.

He shifted his eyes to Masami as she glided over, resting a hand on Madara's shoulder. She guided him away. Madara kept glancing over his shoulder at Naori and Tajima, in what Naori suspected was a damning move, and waved at her. His hand was quickly pulled down by Masami, but the damage was done.

"You will need to distance yourself from him," said Tajima, sinking a blade into her chest that didn't kill, but it _hurt_. How it hurt. "He's a shinobi and soon he'll be fighting on the field. Do you want him to die? Do you want him to be cut down, because he's too soft to do what it takes to survive?"

_Do you want him to die?_

Naori was not a child any longer. She was almost fourteen years old, she'd killed people, and seen battle and the consequences of it. To her horror, his words brought a prickle of tears to her eyes. She blinked once, slow and cautious. She held her breath and _prayed_ the ache in her throat wouldn't become uncontrollable.

"You'll train. You'll study. You have no need to interact with Madara while he is in training."

Naori breathed in. Out. Her voice was so steady it startled her. "Understood, Tajima-sama."

He gave her a sharp nod.

"Dismissed."

(The day was saved by a bonfire.

Naori suspected they all had Masami to thank, who twirled and danced and slammed bare feet to the ground with the beat of the music. She kept Madara close by her, going through a series of moves that looked like a kata, but flowed into a hypnotic dance, too.

Every move and step was taught to Madara. Masami guided him through the steps with the patience of a melting ice age, watching as he did his best not to stumble. Against the singers, who preferred a bass to deep alto, Madara's thin, warbling voice was high. It had brought raised eyebrows and curious stares, until Masami raised her voice into a soprano pitch that informed them Madara had inherited her voice, too.

He was joined by Izuna and Akirou and Jitarou, though the latter of the twins preferred not to sing. Izuna was loud in all things, most of all in voice, and out-sang them all. He out danced them, too. Masami spun them around the bonfire with the deftness of a shinobi.

Dancing with them was like dancing with a hurricane. No one stood a chance, not even Tajima, who was dragged out in a mantle and left the bonfire in significantly less. Hikaku poked her and showed her to a part of the camp where they were handing out sticks of sweet candy. Thick smoke floated through the air that wasn't from the bonfire.

All the while, Masami and Madara and his brothers were a wild frenzy of dark hair and flashing eyes. The five of them dominated the bonfire—pale and beautiful in that otherworldly way that was just as unnerving as it was intriguing. They were the Pied Piper and the lost children, the charmer and the innocents, the witch and her woodland creatures. Together, they were unstoppable.

Naori took a moment to step away from the curls of blue and violet smoke after that. She was, so Hikaku told her, waxing into the overly poetic.)

A series of accidents had befallen several members of the Uchiha Clan in the following months after Tajima's orders to Naori. Strictly speaking, she followed them to the letter, refraining from seeking Madara out and refusing the instinct to fight off his bullies.

When Tajima told the thirteen year old Naori to stay away from his oldest son, in an attempt to toughen him up, he had quite wrongly assumed that would be the end of it. Without the influence of the, frankly, overprotective girl—no longer did she pull splinters from his fingers, or read him bedtime stories when he was ill, or show him how to mix paints—Madara would shape into the model son in no time.

He had forgotten one little detail. It was a fickle thing amongst the Uchiha, all or nothing, undying or fleeting. Naori had taken a nosedive toward _forever_ the first time she held baby Madara in her arms: that being, love. He was the little brother she always wanted. She couldn't even remember a time she might have wanted a sister, or didn't care for the sibling gender, because at that point in her mind, she had always wanted Madara.

So, when the day was wrapped up by a brawl, on the outskirts of camp, that resulted in Chihaku and Kenta sporting broken noses, no one thought twice of it. The two were troublemakers. But then it happened again. And again—until the adults noted a surefire pattern.

Kenta and Chihaku sniped something about Madara. About what, the adults weren't sure. Madara was seven and a genius and the son of the Clan Head. One with reason would try and suck up to Madara, rather than bully him. Kenta and Chihaku were the unreasonable sort.

The next incident was with one of the elderly Uchiha trainers in charge of Madara's development. He was quick to scold and encouragement was synonymous with teeth-pulling—and as it turned out, he had a rather crippling fear of beetles.

Madara also grew extremely fond of the birds. The falconer in charge of the aviary was a terse woman, unforgiving and very unlikely to accompany a child's interest. Her attitude changed very quickly when she started finding letters from her secret lover stuck in random parts of the encampment. Naori never confirmed reading the letters, but Madara's welcome to the aviary was well known.

"Tajima-sama is going to find out what you're doing," Hikaku warned her emphatically over dinner. "I want to make sure he's happy as much as you, but it'll be pointless if we all get in trouble."

She nodded and promised to be careful. She wouldn't get caught.

The next day, Madara ventured into the forest for herbs and berries. He was fond of taking walks there, to the chagrin of Naori and the other clansmen, but today in particular he had wandered deeper than ever. It filled Naori with a deep unease, the farther they strayed from the clan.

Hikaku was a step behind her. They had tailed him, unwilling to discourage that exploratory streak he always seemed to possess. The clan could use the food, too. Hard times seemed to fall swifter and harder on the Uchiha Clan than it did with other clans.

"How much further do you think he's going to go?" said Hikaku with a wary sort of sideways smile. He was worried and annoyed they'd let themselves get in that situation.

"He seems to have found a sweet spot."

Indeed, Madara had spent the last ten minutes in the same meadow. He filled a wicker basket with herbs and berries and other edible roots.

Naori was having difficulty staying awake.

There were red rashes covering her body from some sort of itching powder she highly suspected Shiori had somehow procured. For a child of three, he was turning out to be quite the hellion. He was nothing like Akirou, who was dedicated to his books and quiet training; or Jitarou, who actively avoided conflict, despite showing an inclination for lifting things much, much heavier than him. Shiori even outpaced Izuna, who pouted about it spectacularly—and then denied it.

With rowdy children like them living in a tent not far from hers, it was a wonder she slept at all.

Because Madara was quietly picking berries in the clearing, showing no sign of moving, and she was at risk of nodding off on the spot, Naori conceded.

"I wouldn't mind going back for one of those bean candies," she said, shifting in her spot to coil her legs under her. She could probably sprint back to camp and return in under fifteen minutes. Madara couldn't wander too far. "I'll be right back."

Hikaku sighed, drawing an arch look from her.

"Let me," he said, holding out a hand when she went to protest. "Plus I didn't tell my grandfather where I was going."

Naori's grin was sharp and full of teeth. "Nice knowing you, then."

"He won't be too angry," said Hikaku, though he sounded unsure of himself. "For real—I'll be right back."

A gust of wind kicked up in his wake. Leaves spiraled through the air past her, dragging wisps of dark hair around her cheeks. She flicked the shoulder-length waves back, training a steady eye on Madara. He'd long since lost the uncertain stumble of his toddler years. Despite his wide-eyed youth, he moved like an experienced shinobi. There was grace to his movements that Naori knew she, or Hikaku, hadn't had when they were his age. Being the son of the Clan Head, it was expected that he excel above the others his age. He was lucky he happened to be a real genius.

She uncurled her legs under her. Branches were not, for the record, the most comfortable object to sit on for the better part of three hours. She leaned against the tree, pushing aside a pine branch, the needles prickling her face. The sap smelled of freshly cut maple leaves.

Pine needles, she knew, with a growing sense of dread, unable to remain sitting on the branch, were not supposed to smell like maple trees. She didn't take her eyes off Madara, plucking a few pine needles free of the branch, gathering her chakra up. The needles smelled of regular leaves-not at all like pine sap.

She landed on the ground. She didn't call out for Madara. He would look up and know she was there—or, worse still, wouldn't look up at all.

Chakra pooled for a pulse. She needed only speak the word.

Madara had been quiet for too long. He had been still for too long. Madara never stayed contained to one area that long, and she should have noticed it sooner—

"_Kai_."

The clearing rippled. Madara melted away.

She should have seen the waking nightmare settling over her before it happened. She tore over the clearing, regardless of the little voice telling her he was gone, because he was _just there_. He could have taken a nap, hidden under the tall grasses and delicate white flowers, but he _wasn't_.

The forest was big, was the direction she didn't want her mind to go. She stood with crushed flowers in her fingers, wild eyes searching the darkness between the giant tree trunks, as though Madara would step around one of them at any moment. She gaped wordlessly, half forming his name.

_How long had he been gone?_ was the question that sent her brain slipping over fine glass, her tenuous calm cracking apart.

She stumbled over something hard, catching sight of bright red smeared against grasses and mashed in the ground, and there was only white terror, thoughtless, soundless—

Blueberries. She knelt, pushing trembling fingers into the juices. It was blueberries. They were scattered in the area, crushed against the grasses and flowers, as though there'd been a short fight.

Naori flung herself forward, following the trail of spilled blueberries into the forest. The wicker basket Madara carried was nowhere to be seen, so he still had it, and he'd been spilling out berries and herbs all the while—

(Corpses flashed on a battlefield. Bodies filled with kunai and blades, eyes gouged out. Gaping dark holes in their skulls.)

—he'd run from whatever attacked him, from whoever was trying to kill him, but she would find him—

(Birds plucked the skin off carrion. The ravens were the harbingers of death. She thought she heard the throaty caw of a raven somewhere and tried not to think of Uchiha Tanaka, six years old, throat slit on her first mission.)

—and she would never let him out of her sight again. Most importantly, he was alive. He was alive, because he was stronger than other children his age. He was a genius and strong and alive. There would be no small body, bloodied and deadened, and she wouldn't need feel that grief.

Her eyes stung and she knew she'd activated the sharingan. _Deactivate it_, whispered a voice that sounded like the one that guided her through bloody massacres. _Sidestep and weave and stab and bleed-you don't want to see this, you don't want to remember it, deactivate the sharingan_—

There was the wicker basket. She stopped by it, turning a full circle, scouring the area for any signs of him. A broken branch, a smear of blueberry guts, a tattered yukata sleeve—

She froze. It was hard to keep her eyes open. A gravity seemed to pull them down, burned them, but she couldn't look away.

A delicate curl of ferns framed a bed of underbrush. There were streaks of a dark, glittering red against the fringed plants. She saw the edge of a yukata sleeve, or maybe a scrap of the bottom, or maybe it was a sash, draped over the top of a low-lying branch. The laurel tree seemed to stoop protectively over the small area, shielding it from her.

_Don't look_.

Naori pushed aside the branch. There were droplets of red on the greenery. She pawed through ferns. The blood smeared on her hands.

She looked.

It was Madara's yukata, and there was a body in it. The body didn't very much resemble Madara anymore.

Something high and keening was piercing through her ears. She might have been screaming, but her teeth were clamped shut. She would have thrown up, but she'd seen dead bodies before. She might have cried, but she always knew what she was going to find there.

Her eyes were on fire, temples clamped between her hands, rasping breaths wheezing from her lungs.

His body was stripped to ribbons. It didn't even look like the work of a shinobi. It was savage and brutal. His eyes were still there. Dark and dull and widened in eternal horror.

The bony rattle of laughter was carried on the wind, as it howled through the pines. Another breeze, so startlingly warm it was like being doused in bath water, flowed around Naori's shoulders. There was a creak, a groan, something large unfurling. A tree was falling.

A voice, kind and horribly familiar, spoke behind her, always dry, always a little raspy, as though speaking was a labor of effort. She never sounded so tortured while she sang.

"Naori-chan."

Floating steps. Warm hands pried her away from Madara—she didn't remember crumpling forward to clutch him, but now she was coated in gore—and smoothed dark hair away from her face.

"Oh, Naori. Naori, dear, look at me."

It was Masami. Ashen-faced, eyes so big that Naori mistook them for gaping sockets. Her grip was hard as iron on Naori's shoulders. She murmured something, but it was like hearing words from underwater.

She stepped around the body (Naori couldn't bear to think of that mangled thing as Madara, couldn't compute that with Madara, who was bright and strong and willful) and knelt by it. She pulled a head, grinning teeth exposed, onto her lap.

Green light bloomed in her hands.

"Naori, it will be alright," said Masami, her face gaunt, like paper-thin skin stretched over a skull, like the body in her arms. "I promise."

The clan was in the middle of packing up. No one knew why they were packing up, spurned by the spontaneous orders of their clan head. Most were loathe to leave behind an area that was ripe with game and fresh vegetation, but took one look at the borderline manic gleam in Tajima's eyes, and didn't dare to argue.

Mists clung to the ground level of the forest, turning everything damp, turning simple issues into a three-hundred step problem. The sky bloomed a bloody red as sunset crept over them.

Word got out that three of their own was missing. Uchiha scrambled like dark ants on across the matted meadow they'd camped in for no longer than a week. A few of the adults pulled Hikaku aside to question him, gently as they could through their impatience, and were met with a confused blankness.

Hikaku hadn't seen them all day.

Sunset died in a splendor of dark blue and green, where the light touched the dusk, and the Uchiha abandoned subtlety. Search parties crawled through the forest, trees were leveled, and fires sent up. A frenzied energy was building up under their skin, born from packing so quickly, given life from the fact they'd packed and not _left_ yet.

_There are four others,_ cracked whispers started. _Four other children. Does he need the first?_

Oh, that child was powerful, but the elders doubted he was worth the effort. They were sending out smoke signals to all enemies within range for a pair of errant children and one woman.

Everything was brought to a halt by Izuna's ringing shout. The boy, all of six, bounded over a tree branch and half-sprinted, half-crawled, over branches in the canopies.

Naori and Madara poured out of the underbrush, as though the forest had carried them along and deposited them, supporting each other with shaking limbs. A glaze coated their eyes. More importantly, there was no Masami accompanying them.

Pine needles and dirt clung to them. Madara's yukata was sliced through as though someone went at it with a wind jutsu. Dried blood coated the hems and the torn, ragged ends. He smelled of crushed berries and ozone. Even after Tajima had pried him away from Naori, roughly yanking him from the proceedings to pull him into a secluded part of the forest, and shake him for answers—_"Where is Masami? Where is your mother? Why are you alone? What happened? Answer me!"_—he was unresponsive.

Finally, Naori twitched. It was a short-lived move, but stark against her corpse-like stillness. The adult trying to coax her out of her daze gave an encouraging prompt.

She lifted a hand, fingers shaking so hard her entire arm trembled, and extended an open palm to Tajima. A necklace of hawk talons rested in her small, calloused hand.

A deep, profound silence settled over the Uchiha Clan. Dozens of dark eyes flickered to Tajima. Sadness and shock and sympathy alike flickered in the night.

Tajima took the necklace. His other hand was still clamped on Madara's shoulder. He looked at the hawk talon, as though it was a trick, before it disappeared in his fist.

His next words were an order.

"Move out."


	2. Sleight of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Madara learns magic. Probably.

The old woman's name was Muri and she was very unfortunate. Her iron gray hair was balding, she had a pair of bushy eyebrows, and there were warts and liver spots mottling her bony arms. A loose yukata hung off her frame, a larger haori swathing her, and she hobbled around with a walking stick.

Madara started following her out of curiosity. He stayed on her tail out of pure amusement.

She kept to the clustered parts of town, grumbling to herself in that senile way a lot of elderly did, and everyone did their best not to notice her. It was all the better for her, when her walking stick would dart out, fast as a viper, and trip up an unsuspecting passerby.

They would drop whatever they were holding—usually apples, grain, meats, or any food item—and she would, coincidentally, trip over it. Among a flurry of apologies and reactions that varied from mortification to concern to mild annoyance, the passerby would try and help her up. From there, she would bemoan her life story, through thick tears, nursing scratches and bruises, and hugging a thin body.

_So hungry_, she would cry. She had no family to help her and no way to make money, and she was starving slowly.

And the passerby, awkward under the sidelong stares of the other people in the town, would be unconsciously obliged to share their food. An apple there, a sack of flour here, and before Madara knew it, the old woman had culminated enough food to last her a month.

Seeing as the clan was settled in the area for the time being, and there was no pressing issues that needed attending, he followed her. It was an easy thing, since he was fairly certain she was blind.

The past few years had been good for Madara's ability as a shinobi, but little else. His hair was about the only thing growing anymore, bushy and hanging to midback. It was coarse against his bare arms as he weaved around sparse trees. They were close to the ocean, so the soil was sandy in texture. He rather liked it, compared to the clay-like quality of the mud up north. The forests were thin, which was also a perk. He could see every which direction and there wasn't much to hide under for critters taller than his shins.

A gust of wind rattling through yellowing leaves caught his attention longer than necessary, but he didn't freeze entirely. He clambered onto a tree branch, perched to watch the old woman totter towards a tiny cottage. It was an ugly thing, dark and thatched, an overgrown garden in the front and bales of hay for _something_ in the back.

She had hobbled up to her door, setting her walking stick aside, when she called out to the forest. "I wasn't born yesterday, brat. Come out!"

Her voice was a croaking bark, not anything like the warbles she'd given the townspeople.

Madara considered leaving her there, shouting at an empty forest. His curiosity got the better of him.

"How'd you know I was there?" he asked, landing lightly on the ground. He stayed a healthy distance from her, arms crossed over his chest.

Muri gave a harsh laugh. "I said I wasn't born yesterday! I know these things."

"Sure," said Madara, snickering quietly behind her back. "What's an old crone doing out in the woods, anyway?"

"I don't know," said the old woman. "What's a little brat doing out here without his father?"

Madara bristled. "I can take care of myself!"

"So can I!"

"It was just a question!"

"Well, it was a rude one!"

He could concede that point. It grated within him like sandpaper, but he mustered an apology. The words were mumbled and halfhearted, but it sent her bushy eyebrows flying up toward her high hairline. It made her dark eyes pop out of her skull.

"Manners?" she said. "Well, then. Color me impressed."

Madara was tempted to tell her to shut up, but kept his mouth shut. It was a lack of propriety that got him in that little tussle in the first place. He could hear Naori scolding him from across the forest.

What happened next was a back and forth argument that was more belonging in a playpen of five year old children—certainly not with full grown woman and a thirteen year old boy.

Madara wanted to know who she was, while the old woman maintained it was polite he introduce himself first. As far as he was concerned, that was a dead custom. Even if it wasn't, he wanted it dead, immediately. He dug his heels in the ground. She dug her heels harder. They glared at each other.

"Fine!" Madara burst out, flinging his hands in the air. "I'm Madara. Happy?"

"Call me Muri," she said, cackling to herself, secretive in a way that rang hauntingly familiar. It hung a wet blanket over his good mood—because _irritated bluster_ was not a _foul_ mood for Madara. His hands tightened around his arms. "You want to know what I am?"

"I don't know," Madara gritted out. "Are you going to tell me?"

"I'm a witch!" she replied gleefully. The light in her beady eyes was manic. She was missing teeth. Nothing about her said _witch_. The old tales about witches spoke of hauntingly beautiful people who tempted unwary passersby into the forest, to devour their organs and use their souls for demonic rituals. "Oh, don't look at me like that, brat. I'm a witch."

Madara pulled his head out of the folklore lies he had been fed. He considered backing away slowly. While he was definitely stronger than her—a gust of wind could probably knock her over—he wasn't quite willing to come in contact with her. She could have _diseases_. The Uchiha Clan wasn't in the position to afford special treatments for illnesses.

"Don't believe me, eh?" said Muri. "Think I'm just a crazy old woman?"

"Er—well—" Madara tugged at his sleeves. "Magic isn't real."

"You weave fire with breaths and yet magic isn't real?" she said. "Sounds like trite, boy. Sounds like closemindedness. You aren't closeminded, are you?" She didn't give him a chance to reply. "No, no I don't thing you are. There's openness here. _Potential_."

"You're stark raving," said Madara bluntly.

"I'm a witch," she said matter-of-factly. "We're all a little mad."

That didn't really help her case. He would have told her as such, but she was already plowing on again.

"I've been hit with an epiphany," she said, head tilted, as though seeing him from another angle changed something about him. Her hair fell over her bony shoulder, bared from her sleeveless yukata. She hadn't moved thus far, but now she took a shuffling step forward—

She was _in his face_.

Madara screeched, tripping over himself to get away.

"Y-You can _shunshin!?_"

She crouched by him, the movement animalistic in a way that made Madara's hair raise on end. She grinned toothily. "How would you like to be a witch?"

He scrambled against a tree, only stopping when her words clicked.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"A witch. To be. How would you like."

Madara resolutely did not shake. He gripped the bark of the tree so hard it dug into his palms. It felt as though ants had crawled into his skin and were biting their way up his throat. His mouth tasted like ozone. At some point, Muri had gotten her walking stick again—he hadn't seen her move toward the cottage—and he was quite a long way's from the Uchiha camp. No one could hear him.

His breaths came in uneven gasps.

Coming out in the forest, no matter its sparseness, or the way he could see everything, was a mistake. When Madara was seven years old, something horrible had happened to him in a forest. He had lost his mother. He'd dreamed of laughing trees and breathing shadows for weeks. However, for all it plagued him, he couldn't _remember_ what happened.

"Magic isn't real," he said around chattering teeth. He wasn't cold, but his body wouldn't stop shaking.

Like clouds passing on a sunny day, Muri's face softened. It made her look less like an insane hermit and more like someone's shut-in grandmother.

"Watch here," she murmured softly, clasping her hands at her sternum. There was a glow like a medical jutsu, only it was blue-white, leaking through her gnarled fingers. "Do make sure to say hello," she said, confusingly enough, "it's only polite."

She opened her hands and a little ball of light fluttered out. It was round and sounded like wind chimes. The light washed over her face. It was cool and unknotted something in Madara's chest.

"Hello," he said, the greeting tumbling out of numbed lips.

Muri smiled regardless.

"This is a Will 'o the Wisp," she said. "They're mischievous things. Most of time, they're harmless."

"Most of the time?" said Madara, dark eyes flickering between her face and the glowing orb nervously. He pushed himself even harder against the tree, as though he could mold with it.

"If a cruel person with a strong will gets ahold of one, they may throw a tantrum," she said. "They are mostly a curious thing. Leading travelers to waterholes, that sort of thing."

"So that—that's magic?"

"Not my magic. The Will 'o the Wisp is its own creature and magic," she replied. "My magic—a witch's magic—is more… sympathetic."

His face must have twisted into something spectacular, because she laughed, rough and grating.

"Not the sorry kind of sympathy," she cackled. "The backwards and sideways kind of magic. I'm not shooting fireballs and cursing people's crops."

"What—What _can_ you do?" said Madara, his mouth dry. His eyes were wide and unblinking.

Muri was triumphantly smug, though she had won no major argument. "Do you want to be a witch?"

"I didn't—I just want to know what you can do!"

"Well, I don't tell just anyone what I do," said Muri, her good mood dwindling. She braced her fists on her hips. "You have to be a witch to know that."

"Can you heal people?"

"I don't know," she said stubbornly, "do you want to be a witch and find out?"

"I can't just _be_ a witch. I have to have magic and I'm pretty sure I'd notice that sort of thing by now."

"Would you?" she said. "Become a witch and find out today!" It sounded like a business slogan.

"Can't you give me a hint?"

"You have to become a witch."

Madara let out a wordless scream of anger.

"_That doesn't help me at all!_"

Her answer was the same as ever. Every question, every prod, was met with the same response. His fingers clawed into the tree behind him, clenching his jaw so hard it hurt. A part of him was very tempted to try out a genjutsu on her, but she was so crazy, she might just keep repeating it—genjutsu or not.

Witches hadn't been _real_ fifteen minutes ago. Now, apparently, they were, and one of them wanted Madara to become a witch very badly. It could have been nothing, a waste of time, pure foolishness. The burn of curiosity churned in his gut like nausea. _But_, whispered a voice that sounded like Shiori when he was trying to string Madara into one of his more hairbrained ideas, _what if it was useful? What if it changed the clan's fate for good?_ He wasn't sure he could pass up that chance, no matter how small.

"Alright, fine!" he yelled, tearing at his wild hair, snagging on tangles. "Fine. I'll be a witch."

The victory in her eyes was a powerful thing and made Madara doubt his decision the moment he made it. She wound a startlingly strong arm around his shoulders.

"You made the right choice, my dear boy," she said. "You've the makings of a witch, all right. You'll be a witch."

Madara had always likened himself to a falcon. Proud and circling high, never getting too close to the ground, swooping quick and deadly—unmatched in the air. As she reeled him to the cottage, he realized he felt far more like a canary. And if he was a canary, Muri was most assuredly a cat.

Chances were, Madara would die with the truth trapped in his bones.

He was loathe to admit it, even to himself, but Muri—crazy and batty old Muri—was absolutely right about magic. It was not something one explained to outsiders. Nor was it something simply described as "_healing_" or "_destructive_." It had far more to do with dreams and perception of reality. The closest Madara had come to understanding magic was that they changed the way reality perceived _itself_.

He didn't know how it was possible and he suspected Muri didn't, either. By then, he knew better than to ask. She didn't teach him magic, so much as she tricked him into doing it.

That first day in the cottage had tested every nerve in Madara's body. It put his patience through an obstacle course to end all obstacle courses. One might assume the trials he went through had left him with saint-like patience. One would be very wrong. Madara tolerance for bullshit was gone, all used up on Muri.

Her cottage was a dreadful, ugly thing on the outside, but another world on the inside. Dusty, cracked windows turned into colorful masterpieces of art. Gentle blue light always filtered through them. Herbal gardens, meticulously upkept, hung around the roof.

The first bit of magic he ever accomplished was healing her vines. For reasons he couldn't begin to comprehend, one wall was crawling with them. Plump, ripened purple grapes were always in season, so the entire cottage smelled of wine. They'd been diseased and she'd essentially heckled him until he snapped and—they'd _healed_.

He'd looked at his hands as though they were something foreign, and she'd fallen off her chair, howling with laughter.

Soon, she'd set him to grinding up herbs for potions. A cauldron was kept over an _eternally-burning_ hearth—she'd emphasized _eternally_ many times—that she used for cooking food and potions alike.

"If you don't have a cauldron for a nifty potion, but need to use your herbs," she said, hacking into her palm, rubbing leaves into it. "Magic!"

"That is _disgusting_," Madara gagged out, eyes watering.

"It's practical, brat. Get to it."

That was not a happy day of lessons.

A month of lessons, all as quirky and frustrating as the first, passed.

On the morning of his fourth week as an apprentice witch, Madara received dismaying news: the clan would be moving. He'd wheedled and asked Tajima why he was pushing their move date earlier. Then, he sweated bullets when Tajima turned the questionnaire onto Madara ("Is there a reason you want to stay? What aren't you telling me?"), and finally slipped out of camp while the others were packing up.

He sprinted to her cottage, bursting through the door, screaming at her to wake up _now_—and she flew out of the alcove she slept in. She tripped over her blankets, ripping her curtains down as she went—pretty, galaxy-looking ones, that glittered like real stars—and did a full barrel roll.

Popping up onto unsteady feet, she screeched another question, "_Whozzere_? Attacker!?" and grabbed the nearest weapon.

She brandished a spoon and a bushel of herbs. Her hair was wild, flying in her eyes.

"Izzat you, brat?"

Madara, despite it all, found his lungs catching with the urge to laugh. He leaned against the kitchen counter to regain his breath.

"Do—Do you want some sage advice?" he said, mouth twitching. "Don't attack me with that."

She blinked at him blearily. Looked to the bushel of sage in her hand. Then she threw the spoon at his head.

He was chased, screaming, up the pantry—tucking his legs up under him to avoid her pummeling fists.

"Brat! Fiend! I'll gut you like a fish and spread your entrails to the stars—"

"_My clan is leaving today!_" he howled above her shrieks. "_This is slightly important, so if you'd just LISTEN_—"

"IS THAT WHAT YOU WOKE ME UP FOR?"

"DO YOU WANT ME GONE?!"

"I DON'T CARE WHERE YOUR CLAN IS GOING!"

"HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO TEACH ME IF I'M NOT _HERE!?_"

His voice gave an untimely crack, going up several octaves.

Muri gave a loud scream of pure frustration, before gripping her head. She took three deep, calming breaths. Taking a note from her strained attempts, Madara mirrored her. For a minute, the cottage was filled with nothing but the desperate attempt not to devolve into another screaming match.

"I am very good at moving my cottage around," Muri finally rasped.

Madara's voice was just as hoarse. "I noticed."

If one were to describe Muri's cottage, they would not pay much attention to the layout. That was due to things having a habit of moving around overnight. Sometimes the kitchen was across from the front door, while other times the fireplace occupied that area. On a memorable occasion, Madara had walked in to find Muri's alcove nestled into the roof, the eternally burning fireplace directly beneath her.

"I didn't know you could move the entire cottage, though."

"Now you do." She waved him down. "That's not for little birds. Get down."

He grumbled as he clambered to the floor, throwing her sulky glares. Despite the furious beginning to the morning, or maybe because of it, she was unusually tame that day.

"I've got a trick to teach you," she said. "A life hack, if you will, with all that hair on your head."

"You're not using my hair for a potion."

"Heavens, no. That would end terribly." She rummaged through a cupboard, pulling out a box full of cords. He'd seen the cords before, had even woven a few of them. She had added extra cords for tying, dozens of them, down the length. "These here are where I put my baubles."

"You what?" he said blankly.

"Baubles," she repeated, pulling out a second, smaller, box. It was painted blue, with black feathers. It was full of clear, spherical things like beads. They reminded him of an egg filament, only thicker and stronger. "You fill them with ground herb mixtures. Tie them to the cord and—"

She wove the cord into a stringy braid in her hair.

"No one need know they're there," she said. "Most certainly not in your hair."

"So I can keep healing mixtures on me at all times?" whispered Madara, not daring to hope. He'd had the hardest time keeping the herbs on him. He had pouches for very specific things and the herbs smelled _very_ strongly. Everyone had wanted to know why he smelled like the inside of an abandoned bakery. It was good to know he could save his brothers' lives, but _still_— "And they're smell proof?"

"Yes and yes," said Muri. "Try it out—my last lesson until your clan settles again."

Hearing that sent a startling twang of sadness through him. She was gruff and definitely not a people person, but that was perfect—because neither was Madara. The two of them were antisocial disasters together, with a side of magic.

Madara pulled out the mortar and pestle, and got to turning the herbs into fine powder. There were slits in the baubles that allowed him to pour the silky powder into them. A burst of hot chakra—his fire affinity, as it turned out, was downright useful for witchcraft applications—sealed the bauble closed. He repeated the process time and again, until he had several leather cords full of healing mixtures woven into his hair. And she was right about the thickness. No one would be the wiser.

"Thanks," he said in an awkward, sidelong mumble. He tugged one of the braids and decided he rather liked them. He was tempted to add a few for fashion's sake. Maybe, then, Izuna would stop badgering him about his _"godawful hedge hair"_ style.

Muri gave one of the braids a tug, as well. "Don't mention it. Brat."

It was spoken with an undeniable fondness, though, and Madara gave a small, crooked grin. When she sent him off, not long after that, he suspected she wanted to say more. The door slammed behind him.

There was chaos in the Uchiha encampment. Nothing terrible had happened—Shiori had just managed to move all of Tajima's personal possessions behind his tent, and he'd thought he was robbed for all of five minutes.

That alone might not have been enough to cause a hassle, but Shiori had also put holes in all of Maiko's book covers. As it turned out, Maiko was deathly afraid of small holes. Then, apparently unsatisfied, Shiori had rounded out the day by replacing all of Chihaku's clothing with outfits five sizes too large.

Madara merged back into the clan, as though he'd never left, and sidled up to where Shiori was surveying his handiwork. There was no small measure of pride on his pale, lofty features.

"Do you get off on seeing people lose their heads?"

"You're a mind-reader, really," said Shiori, shoulders shaking. "Maiko shrieked so loud, people thought she'd seen a dead body."

"That's—That's not really funny."

"Yeah, well, she made fun of me drooling in my sleep after I almost _died_," said Shiori. "Everyone's got a weird sense of humor."

"She _what?_" said Madara, straightening up in outrage.

"Like I said," Shiori snickered. "Screamed really loud."

Madara let out a grumble.

"Do you know where we're going?"

"Back north," said Shiori without preamble. "Overheard Father talking to old Hiki-chan."

Madara snorted quietly despite himself. "She'll kill you if she hears you call her that."

"Well, it's a good thing she won't hear me, right?"

For the next eight minutes, they stood in silence that could have been mistaken as companionable, to the unwary passerby. It was, in reality, akin to the pause right before battle. One side waited for the other to blink. Shiori, all of eight years old—so very clever, but _young_—broke first.

Madara snatched him out of the air and curled an arm around his neck, roughly rubbing his knuckles through his brother's hair. He got a wail about hair in response, and set to making sure every lock of hair was sticking out in random parts.

"Sadist."

"Brat."

Gods, he sounded like Muri.

"What's with that look?" Shiori laughed.

"It's nothing."

He left Shiori on the outskirts of camp and made a beeline for the aviary. The old falconer had long since retired, for a new and much more welcoming young woman. She smiled at him and they got to releasing the birds for travel. The birds would circle overhead, undyingly loyal to the Uchiha Clan, until they settled in a place long enough to return to the aviary. Madara brushed his finger over the cheek of a pretty cooper hawk. It was a common breed, but he loved the spattering of browns over the cream colored stomach. Her name was Fuyu and he'd kept her for almost five years counting.

The door opened, and Izuna peered inside. His face cracked into a grin. Twelve years old and he was already doing his best to trade the childish innocence of his smiles for a roguish charm. It was not working yet, which was probably for the best. Madara dreaded when he was older—older than Madara was now—and he had to bat off suitors with a large stick. Or, more likely, a large sword.

"You disappeared again this morning," said Izuna. His eyes glittered, dark and curious, like the birds around him. "Are you ever going to tell me what you're sneaking off to do?"

Madara gave a half shrug. "Solo training is pretty useful."

"Shiori's running out of pranks to take attention off you, you know."

"Is _that_ why he's becoming the literal, living boogeyman of the clan?" Then, after sweeping out the last corner of the tent, he added, "He doesn't have to."

"'Course he doesn't, but he does. _We_ do," said Izuna pointedly. "Because we're, y'know, brothers. And we tell each other stuff."

"Well, y'know," said Madara, purely to annoy, "we don't have to tell each other _everything_."

It was tempting to tell Izuna everything. His brother was only twelve, but he had wisdom beyond his desire to be a heartbreaker. The problem wasn't whether or not his brother could keep it a secret; it wasn't even Izuna leaping to the conclusion that Madara had simply gone mad, though that _was_ a possibility. The problem was, annoyingly enough, the reason Muri would not tell him about magic, until he was already learning it. If he told Izuna about magic, he would want proof, and Madara would have to show it and—it wasn't that _easy_.

The most straightforward way to prove magic would be—_again, the same as Muri_—to show a Will 'o the Wisp. Apparently, a Will 'o the Wisp was a big deal for most witches—Muri had dodged his questions about other witches—and he hadn't managed to find, or summon one, yet. He didn't even know _how_ to get a Will 'o the Wisp; he only assumed one summoned or found one.

His brother groused and groaned when Madara deflected the questionnaire yet again. The clan was packed up and ready to leave before midday. They were traveling the plains, the sun just past its zenith, heat blaring down at them like some hateful god of fire.

Madara was fond of the nomadic lifestyle, though it couldn't last. They had traveled up through the grasslands, to a higher mountain chain—which they'd been chased out of after a couple weeks—and down into the marshes, dominated by the Uzumaki Clan. The Uzumaki, boisterous and loud as they were, mostly were content to live and let live, so long as no one challenged them.

Eventually, the dark, tangled forests of central Fire Country called them back. Their tents were nothing to the strong walls of the Uchiha Stronghold in the forest. It was easier to keep supplies together, and if they could keep a secure line open to Sora-ku, their only hurtle would be funds—and the Senju. Always, the Senju.

They left central Fire Country too long ago for Madara to remember their battles against the Senju, but he knew enough from his father's gruesomely-detailed stories. Tajima's childhood seemed compiled of battles against the Senju. Most of his friends were killed by the Senju. A good deal of the clan was killed by the Senju, back then, before Tajima had pulled the clan away from the forests, into the grasslands. Part of Madara wondered why they couldn't stay near the grasslands. He'd been fond of all the waterfalls in the northern countries.

Why, he thought, tugging the squirming Shiori into his shoulders, would he risk his family for a piece of land?

After a few days of camping on the plains, they reached the first patches of trees. They camped outside a patch of trees for shade. The clearings had become overgrown and square, remnants of ancient crops that were cultivated, then abandoned, ages beyond counting ago. He sat on the stump of a tree that might have been cut down by farmers hundreds of years ago, running his fingers over the baubles tied into his hair. He gave them an appreciative tug, feeling the strain against his roots.

"ANIKI!"

Shiori burst out of the undergrowth and shoved Madara off the stump.

Having been desensitized after the tenth time Shiori popped out of a random hidey-hole to scare the living daylights out of Madara, he graced Shiori with nothing more than a glare.

"Did you have to?" he said, brushing dirt off his yukata as he stood.

Shiori cheerfully stole Madara's seat on the stump. He swung his legs idly. They were wrapped up in bandages, a weapons pouch on his hip. Tajima had advised they all remain at the ready for attacks, the moment they'd gotten close enough to the central forests to see the dark, wrinkled outlines of pines.

"Number one," he said, "when have I ever not stolen your seat? And number two: I wanna know."

"Know what?"

"I _wanna know_."

"What?"

"You know what."

Madara groaned. "I'm done here."

With speed that was a little disconcerting, considering his age, Shiori snatched one of the leather strands in Madara's hair. "What's this? A bondage strap?"

"How do you even—_no_!" said Madara, face hot. "How do you even know what that is?"

"I heard Minaru talking," said Shiori.

"I'm going to have a talk with Minaru," grumbled Madara in a dark tone, arms crossed. He willed the flush away from his cheeks. It was largely unsuccessful.

Perched on the edge of the stump, Shiori resembled a sparrow. He was all bony limbs, pointed chin, brimming with an indominable energy that everyone, Tajima included, had done their best to try—and fail—to tame.

"What're you doing?"

"Meditating," said Madara blandly.

Shiori snorted. "You _can't_. Father always complains about it."

"Father complains about everything."

"_And_ about your "solo training,"" said Shiori, doing air quotations, grinning widely. "Y'know. The shit you—"

"_Language_!" squawked Madara, aghast.

"—Oh, what are you? An adult?" said Shiori, barging on before Madara could interrupt and tell him that yes, in fact, he was almost an adult according to the clan. "Anyway, Father buys the whole "solo training" thing, but I don't. I see everything—"

Dark eyes bloomed sharingan red. A tomoe spun around in a lazy circle. He'd taken to activating them for comedic affect, to the chagrin of the adults, and the fury of the elders. He was remarkably good-natured about them, considering he activated the sharingan for the first time _falling out of a tree._

"You can't hide from _me_," said Shiori with a low laugh that concerned Madara more than he was willing to let on. "So 'fess up."

Madara drew in a breath, braced himself for the impact. "I'm a witch."

Predictably, his brother snorted loudly.

"Okay, now what's really going on?" he asked.

"I discovered an old woman with a moving cottage."

"_Aniki_, please?"

"No, really. There was a talking bird and everything."

There wasn't a talking bird. He'd asked about talking birds, or other talking animals, if not birds, and was met with evasive non-answers.

It was the same kind of answer an Uchiha might receive if they asked the Elders about the mangekyou sharingan. "Oh, it's powerful. Very powerful. So useful," they would say, and then grow conveniently deaf when asked _how_ one got their hands on a mangekyou sharingan. And then the Elders had the _nerve_ to play the offended party when Madara questioned the use of a clan legend, if no one was going to explore it.

Birds had nothing on the Elders when their feathers were ruffled up. Even Shiori, mischievous and a bit vindictive, didn't come close to the Elders. Hikari and Ran and Chiho made up three of the largest thorns in Tajima's side. Madara wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not. They almost never agreed on Tajima's plans. It didn't matter if the plan was attack or retreat, stay or leave, regroup or separate—they found _something_ to nitpick.

Madara and Shiori—who was pouting over his "failed" attempted to weed out the truth—headed back to the clan as a storm rolled in. Rain splattered in cold droplets as they ran for cover, joining Akirou and Jitarou where they were trying to beat Izuna had a game of shogi. Going off the self-satisfied grin on Izuna's face, they weren't doing well.

"Mission failed," Shiori announced at they barged into the game, taking up roost next to Izuna. Madara decided to show the twins some mercy and joined their team. "We'll get him next time, boys."

"What'd you say this time?" said Izuna, raising his eyebrows at Madara.

"Called himself a witch," Shiori groused. "The _gall_."

"Big word," Jitarou shot out, who was beginning to look frustrated with the board.

"Actually, it's small."

"You _know_ what I mean."

"I know what you say."

Jitarou hissed out a groan between his teeth, moving another piece. The evening wore on as they played back and forth. Madara had a sneaking suspicion he was incredibly unhelpful, calling out tips and hints, going off the way Akirou started tensing up every time he opened his mouth.

The rain didn't let up. A damp cold set in as they were getting ready for bed. Winter seemed to be coming early, going off the way Madara was already shivering under his covers, his brothers curling up around him for warmth. They were a bunch of miniature furnaces, with the exception of Izuna, who always seemed to run at a slightly lower temperature. It probably had something to do with him being the only member of their family not to have a fire affinity.

He was dismayed the find the weather even more disagreeable the next morning. The sky was a murky gray, the ground running in rivulets of mud and grass, as they packed up for travelling. Grumbles of protest chorused with the constant patter of rain; groggy, frowning faces wandering the encampment at a sluggish pace. No one was enthusiastic about the rain.

"I'm going to die," said Izuna dramatically, pulling a cloak tighter under his chin. His hair clung to his face in pitch-black strands. It made his eyes look bigger than normal. "Blame it all on Father. This is terrible. This is abhorrent."

"This is disgusting," Shiori agreed.

Akirou sneezed violently.

They dragged their feet with exaggerated fatigue. Madara kept flitting between them, radiating warm chakra through their cloaks to keep them dry as possible in the constant downpour. It left him drained before midday, but by then the rain had gone from _punishment-of-the-heavens_ to _the-gods-were-dribbling-on-them_.

By the time they neared central Fire Country, the rain had let out. The dark storm clouds behind them promised the chance of more, but they were temporarily safe. Even if the weather decided to rain on them again, they had reached the part of the forests that was thick enough to provide extra protection. Most of the Uchiha seemed relieved to be back in the forest. Madara felt it was a bit of a double-edged blade.

The endless underbrush obscured as much as it protected. Nature didn't care about sides, and would provide cover for them, as well as hostiles.

Madara caught himself stealing second and third and fourth glances into the darkening forest in a pattern that was almost obsessive. He focused on unpacking tents, situating the birds in the aviary, in an attempt to divert his attention in a way that was too pointed for him not to think about it.

Last time he was in the forest, it ended terribly. They hadn't returned to central Fire Country for almost ten years, since the disappearance of Masami. Even after all those years, dense forests had a way of sending Madara into a loop of _don't-look-don't-look-don't-look_, though he was never sure what he wasn't looking at.

The forest was beautiful. Gargantuan trees towered into a heavy green canopy that hadn't been hit by the autumn color change, yet.

With the grasslands to their back, emptied of anything but rolling hills and bison, they had little in way of enemies to worry about from that angle. Madara had assumed that meant they could focus their guard rotations on the forest to their north, west, and south—instead, Tajima tripled the guards around all angles. He sent out squads into the forest the day they arrived.

Madara was unpacking his personal affects, few as they were, as his brothers burst into the tent. The calamitous burst of shouting that erupted the moment they saw him was headache-inducing.

He crossed his arms. "Repeat that again. Slowly—and shut up, Shiori."

Shiori, in a moment of maturity, stuck out his tongue.

They had been given a scouting mission. The news was delivered with pearly-eyed, excited smiles that clashed horribly with the sinking fear in Madara's gut. He tried to reflect their happiness back at them, feeling as though he was ripping something inside of him to do it.

As soon as they had gone to prepare for the mission, Madara dropped his bags on the floor of his tent. He scrambled through them to find his mantle and weapons, wrapped carefully in bandages, strapping pouches to his legs and arms. While his brothers were preoccupied arguing over who got the giant fuma shuriken—_neither_ of them were built for the thing, but he kept that to himself—he snagged a fresh set of kunai and several rounds of wire. He grabbed a few extra rounds, after some forethought. He knew Izuna had been practicing a battlefield strategy involving wire.

He caught up with them as they reached the forest, falling in line with them without a word. Four pairs of startled, dark eyes landed on him.

"I asked Father," he said cheerfully, lips upturned in a smile.

One little lie never hurt anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHh i wasn't happy with this one, but it's been sitting in my docs so. Here it is!

**Author's Note:**

> Annnd that's a wrap. I really loved picking out the names. Masami's name especially cracks me up, because it means something like "nobility, grace" etc etc. Basically her parents had Plans for a Good Daughter and were probably very disappointed. 
> 
> Akirou and Jitarou were named as such because Masami was unconscious after their birth, and Tajima has zero(0) creativity. Akirou = born in the autumn, which was the season they were born in. Jitarou just means "second," basically--the second twin. Masami was awake for Shiori's birth, so she managed to squeeze in a little bit of creativity that backfired anyway. It's a whimsical name and Shiori is the Little Shit of the family. They put the most thought into Madara and Izuna's names, because they were the eldest. Third child and onward is kinda... eh. 
> 
> (Or I have too much time on my hands to think about this stuff at work. They're my brain babies I have to.)


End file.
